


No Hiding Place

by hangingfire



Category: Cornelius Quartet - Michael Moorcock
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/pseuds/hangingfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which we get a glimpse of Una Persson and Jerry Cornelius on a road trip under a poison sky. Things are rough all over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Hiding Place

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a follow-up to the Cornelius story "The Murderer's Song". Originally posted at [fanfic_luckydip](http://community.livejournal.com/fanfic_luckydip/5340.html), prompt: "wet clothes", July 2008

> In the not very distant future   
> When everything will be free   
> There won't be any cute secrets   
> Let alone any novelty   
> —Elvis Costello, "No Hiding Place"

> CLIMATE CHANGE PUTS U.S. WAY OF LIFE AT RISK: EPA  
>  "We are not saying in this report that more people will die in the future due to climate change," he said. "What we are saying is that there's an increased risk of deaths due to heat waves in the future as the climate changes. We have an opportunity to anticipate these increased risks ... and to prepare for the future in order to mitigate these risks."  
>  —Reuters, July 17, 2008

  
Mrs Una Persson studied the poisonous yellow-grey sky for a moment before climbing back into the battered old Jeep. The rain showed no sign of letting up, and they would have to keep moving. It was lucky for them that Shakey Mo's map had actually been correct; she'd located the private fuel depot just short of the last petrol in the tank. The wealthy owners had spared no expense in securing it, but all their efforts turned out to be little defence against a woman in a foul temper with a Banning mobile cannon in the back of the Jeep. She filled up the tank with considerable satisfaction. With any luck, it would be just enough fuel to get them to their destination.

Jerry Cornelius slept through the whole damn thing. Slept or was catatonic; it was hard for Una to tell sometimes. She was thirty miles down the road from the depot before her passenger stirred. He tugged at the collar of his damp car coat and made another ineffectual attempt to close the window. The mechanism was broken, leaving an inch-wide gap through which rain doused him occasionally.

"What's the time?" he muttered.

"Daytime," Una said. "My watch hasn't worked properly since Baton Rouge. But we're probably three hours out."

"Out? Out from where?" He straightened up and began rooting around on the trash-strewn floor.

"Catherine radioed this morning. She said—"

He sat up, having found a grease-stained towel. "Catherine? Why the hell didn't you wake me?" He began to stuff the towel into the window gap.

"I tried. You were out. In any event, she said that if we can get to the shifter in Austin, it should get us back to Ladbroke Grove. And not a bloody moment too soon."

"Can't argue with you there," he said, staring out at the yellow-grey plains that were nearly indistinguishable from the sky above. It had been rapeseed fields once, perhaps, or possibly corn. "What a fucking mess. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this."

"Even Oxford wasn't this much of a cock-up."

"At least the middle classes survived in that zone." The towel in the window slipped out and Jerry began fussing with it again. "Never thought I'd be sorry to see them collapse too."

Una snorted. "You're just sorry because their failure is the apotheosis of the complete and total failure here."

"Well, yes," he said peevishly. "It's all a fucking mess, Una. The internal combustion engine was the beginning of the end and we were all too in love with it to see it. And the promises of technology? Illusions. Smoke and mirrors. Opium. Heroin. Utter crap."

"That's a fine thing, coming from the sometime Messiah for the Age of Science."

The wind whipped the towel out of the window and a lashing of rain fell on Jerry's face. "Oh, sod you," he snarled. "You're just as accountable as I am." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Christ, I think this thing is starting to mildew."

Una glanced sidelong and, at the sight of the bedraggled car coat, was inclined to agree. She relented a little. "We did try, Jerry."

"Did we?"

More rain blew in through the window, this time hard enough to spray Una as well. Jerry watched this with a certain satisfaction. Una reached into her coat pocket, took out a handkerchief, and daintily wiped the greyish water from her face. Almost as an afterthought, she handed the handkerchief to Jerry. He grimaced at her and mopped at his face. "That's doing about as much good as your efforts at the conference in Kyoto," he said.

"You're welcome. Wanker," she shot back.

He grinned then, a bit of a death's-head look about him. "Thought it was supposed to be all drought in these parts," he went on conversationally. "But no matter what the weather, everyone's buggered here, aren't they? It's either drought, or—" he waved a hand toward the muddy fields, "this."

"Times are rough all over," Una said shortly. She was beginning to wish Jerry would conk out again. Catatonia was better than this barrage of hopeless chatter. "We'll be out of it soon enough."

"For a while," Jerry replied. "But it'll start all over again, won't it? Somewhere else, somewhen else ... everything tends towards entropy. And all the entropy in all the zones is starting to look like this."

"Jerry?"

"Yes, Una?"

"Shut the bloody hell up."

In silence, the erstwhile Messiah for the Age of Science and the Heroine of Time and Space made their way through the blasted landscape, under a rotten sky.


End file.
